Burned, Blocked, And Better Than Ever! Joni Woods On Divorce, Relationships, & Rebuilding

Today, I sit down with Joni Woods, a survivor of emotional, physical, and religious abuse whose story highlights how societal pressure, relationship expectations, and toxic conditioning can shape — and distort — a person’s entire life. I open the episode by exploring how culture pushes people into unhealthy relationships and how loneliness often forces individuals to lower their standards. Ms. Woods and I dig into how self-worth is eroded long before abuse becomes visible, and how that emotional vulnerability paves the way for long-term trauma.

As Ms. Woods shares her early life, she walks me through the religious pressure placed on her from childhood, the expectations laid on her identity, and the 15-year marriage that grew from insecurity instead of love. We talk about manipulation, abandonment, and how trauma bonds keep people trapped far longer than they realize. I also ask her about her children’s experiences, how she protected them through her divorce, and how she now raises them to understand consent, intimacy, boundaries, and emotional health in a world dominated by social media and distorted relationship models.

In this conversation, I examine how men and women alike face abuse that often goes unrecognized — especially for men who feel they must “tough it out.” Ms. Woods and I also discuss the cultural silence around male victims, the damaging effects of toxic masculinity, and why both sons and daughters must be taught about grooming, consent, and manipulation from a young age. We explore how marriages built on fear, pressure, or religious expectation create generational harm that can last decades if left unaddressed.

Today’s episode also highlights Ms. Woods’ book Burned, Blocked, and Better Than Ever, which began as a series of late-night journal entries during her divorce. She explains how meeting other people who were silently struggling inspired her to share her story publicly.

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*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and one thing I've mentioned before on the show and at virtual events and just in person. Societal pressure. I've talked about it in terms of addiction recovery because that is a huge factor behind drinking and smoking.

But I've also talked a lot about relationships, about how the word single has become a, oh, no, that's a terrible thing. You should be out there and partying because you're young and and then when you're a little bit older, oh, single, you gotta get married, your clock's running out, you gotta settle down.

And then when you're widowed, you can't live in the past forever. You gotta get someone. So there's this constant societal pressure to be in a relationship. There's a lot of shaming around singleness, and there's a lot of societal pressures about when to get married, how to get married, how many kids they have.

And it can lead to, I work in domestic violence prevention, sexual assault prevention abusive relationships. A lot of those can come from that need to fill that societal pressure on top of unhealthy emotional connection and communication. We're gonna get into all these topics today.

They're all interwoven, and we have an expert here with us today to do so. Johnny Woods, so great to have you here. And could you please tell us a little bit about yourself? Thank you. Yeah, I am, I guess what you would call a survivor of emotional, physical, and, unfortunately religious abuse, the, the aspect of being told who you're supposed to be and how you're supposed to be it, and what that dictated in my life and what that made me feel like I had to allow is something that I carry with me all the time.

And I, so I wrote a book talked about my story because it, it started young. I grew up in the church. I grew up probably on a pew, and I followed that path for 36 years. And then it wasn't until I decided, this isn't doing me any good. I keep, you keep telling me I'm supposed to be this person, and to be this person means I get X, Y, Z.

I wasn't getting X, Y, Z. In fact, I was constantly being told I wasn't good enough. I wasn't enough, and because of that. I stayed far too long, far too long, and I don't wanna see people go through that. I know you get to choose who you want to be and then every day you make that choice and it's hard and it sucks.

And there are days where you're like, why did I make the choice of to be this person? When sometimes you're lonely, when you're single, when you are like, I'm not going to lower my expectations or my boundaries, or I'm not going to let people run me over because I know who I am. I know my self worth. But it's hard.

It's hard. It is not an easy choice. 100%. You actually brought up one of the points that I always discuss, which is the lowering your standards and expectations. Because of loneliness. You know that building and growing desperation just from your own personal desires as well as societal. And it can be very difficult too, especially for those of y'all who are in the 20 to 30 age range where you're seeing your friends get married and get in their homes and you, and you feel like you have to play catch up, to, to people.

But you know, I think understanding that we work at our own pace is so important. And I think a lot of us have unfortunately gotten into relationships because of those expectations and those desires and that creeping loneliness, and I think. Part of what emphasizes that loneliness more than it because it's okay to be alone.

Mm-hmm. I think what makes it bad is people projecting these ideas around it, that if you're lonely, you're less safe, that you're less stable, that it's bad for you, that it's bad for your mental health, that you won't feel love or be loved. And what this causes is a lot of people, especially in the newer generations, don't have self love.

And then they try to fill that hole of self-love with a relationship regardless of, of what it may be. I think it's so important for people really to learn self-love first, but we don't really put that out as a society. We put out all this self-care stuff, but it's different than self-love and self-love being and loving yourself, not taking care of yourself.

There's a difference between acknowledging and knowing your value and how you treat yourself. 'cause you can say, Hey, I'm, I'm, worthy and this and that, and then still treat yourself like crap. And then, so that's not loving yourself. And so I want to go to. Well, let's just ask along those lines, when did you discover self-love and was that something you really struggled with growing up?

It was definitely something I struggled with growing up because living in the environment that I lived in, I wasn't, I was always told you would get unconditional love, but it always came with conditions and if I met, if I passed the test. If I met the expectations, if I did everything that I was supposed to do, then technically, I passed the test, I would be praised.

But it was just never enough. And I had spent my entire life. I'm 46 years old. I've spent my entire life looking for unconditional love because that's what I was told I would get if I hit these expectations in every relationship. And finally, when I was 36, I was just like, you know what? It's, it's time for me to decide that I get to love myself first.

So that's what I do now, is I, no matter how hard it is, I am proud of the person that I get to be every day, and that's my self love. You can tell me, and I do, I have plenty of people who look at me and say, oh, well you shouldn't allow this in your life, or You should do this. You should respond.

They want to tell me how to react or behave or, or, just because, they feel upset for me or indignant for me. But at the end of the day, I choose to act in love and kindness. That's going to be who I want to be, and every time I get the opportunity to live that out means I love myself just a little bit more.

I'm proud of myself. Like that's the most important part. Like I didn't necessarily agree with what you said, and because of that, I found my own path. And for me that's, that's been huge. That has been the thing that has brought me to a place where I, I love who I am. It's not always for everyone else.

Some people don't like it. They're like, why do you, why are you like this way? Why do you allow some things in your life? And honestly, it's because I choose every day to be someone that's full of love and kindness, and it's hard and it sucks, but I'm okay with it. For sure. I know one of the things we've talked about in addiction recovery, a lot of addiction starts as societal pressure and one of the cultures and mindsets that goes on right now, societally, and I'm sure it's been going on for a long time, really, but now more than ever, it was like.

I had a guest on the show share about how she declined, smoking at a party. And they said, well, you drink though, right? And she said, no, I don't drink either. And it was like, well, why do you have a problem? Like, are, are you an addict? Or, why are you not, drinking or smoking with the rest of us?

It was like she had to do one or the other to fit in. And I think it's so interesting that it's kind of like one of those things where you're. An outcast are wrong if you choose not to drink that. It's become this expectation that in high school and college it like it's been so associated with those places.

And then as well at at work events. And part of that, I always mention is television and movies putting forward like, hey. Part of the high school experience is drinking part of the college experience. Like you have to party if you're in college. And it's, it's not true at all. But one thing you mentioned is, people aren't gonna agree with you and there's always gonna be haters and people who disagree.

I mean, that's just how it is, no matter what you do. And I, I seen that a lot. I saw that a lot in the military. For example, if you loved the military and you were working really hard, having that hoo ya military spirit. Mm-hmm. Everyone who didn't like the military hated you and they thought you were, a clown.

If you hated the military, then all the people who were in there and wanted to do it said, you're a scumbag, so you can never please everyone. There's a, there's a lot of times where, if one person's happy, the other person isn't. And so I want to get into, you talked about a, a marriage that you went into that was not so good, that was abusive.

When did you get married and how long was that marriage? Oh I got married really young, and so I tell my kids all the time, do not get married. I got married when I was 20 years old and it was straight out of Bible college and we were married for 15 years. Technically he would've been my first official boyfriend.

I didn't date a lot. Like I said, I was like raised in, in Christian environment Pentecostal, very strict religious and they had expectations. Right. And so he, he fit the mold. He fit what was acceptable for me to get married. So at 20 years old, not having lived life, not having even understanding who I was, but doing it out of trauma because there was a lot of family factors.

When I decided. This is the path I'm gonna take. They decided they didn't want me on that path. And so it was this tug of war of me becoming an adult and them trying to continue to parent me. And unfortunately I'm stubborn, so I just was like, while I'm doing what I'm doing, and he fit the bill and he fit the mold.

And so I leaned into that. And the for, for me, I have, I have always said when I got a divorce, it wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't making a bad decision then I was fixing a mistake I had made. When I was 20 years old, that was the problem. I was 20 years old, didn't have a clue of who I really was, let alone what that looked like going into a marriage.

But I just was following this expectation, this path, this laid out thing for me, and because of that, I made the biggest mistake of my life. And I spent 15 years in that mistake and I got some amazing, obviously I've got my two children who are fantastic and they are the blessings that have come out of that, and I will never regret that mistake, but I had to fix it.

That was the big thing. You can't regret your choices. You just have to fix them. Mm-hmm. That's you, you, you make the choices. You live with it, and then you fix 'em where you can. And that's what I did was after 15 years of marriage, it was like, all right, we gotta fix this mistake, and I've got to do it in a way that.

Enhances my life. That makes my life better, that makes my kids' life better, that hopefully makes my ex-husband's life better. Something that is, that was holding us back from really leaning into what was out there for us, my goal had always been two happy homes, and I wanted to see us have one, and I wanted him to have one.

He missed out to, to be quite honest, I missed out on 15 years of being genuinely and authentically loved, as did he, like I took that away from him, and that's, that's me being accountable and responsible for my mistake. I had to fix it and I had to fix it in every area possible. You talked about him fitting the bill, so to speak.

Was there any attraction at all to him or was it just like, this is what everyone would like? This is what I'm supposed to have. Or did you have some kind of attraction to him in the beginning? Some kind of relationship in the very beginning? Yeah, I did. I, unfortunately there were tactics in his pursuit of me that made me feel really diminished in my worth.

So I, I don't like to throw like, therapy words around narcissistic, all that kind of stuff. But he, used tactics to make me feel not good enough to pursue anyone else. Li like specifically, he said, that guy would never date you. And I was like, oh, okay. So it became, well, I am, I guess we're gonna date because you're telling me I'm not good enough for anyone else.

So. To be fair, that is not I, I mean, maybe it is people's experiences more, which would be unfortunate. That would really hurt my heart is for people to be told, you're not good enough for anyone else but me. Like that's essentially, that's what I was told. Was, I wasn't good enough for anyone else but him.

And so instead of me going I have standards, I have boundaries, you're not meeting them. I was like, well, I have standards and I have boundaries, but apparently I'm not good enough for anyone else. So if you don't measure up to my standards and my boundaries, my expectations. Who is, because nobody else wants me.

So it was, it was a mixed bag of him, him playing the game and me being completely insecure, unfortunately. And was this someone you met at church or school or like what kind of environment? Yeah. We had met in Bible college, so he was a year ahead of me. So he was more educated, I guess.

Okay. And then you talked about the divorce being you holding yourself accountable and fixing a mistake. How was he receptive to that? It did not go well. It usually doesn't unless you have like a very mature relationship. Unfortunately, we did not have one and yeah, it, it spiraled into a lot of gossip, a lot of just negative.

I'm the worst person in the world. I am going to hell in a hand basket. I am ruining our lives, our kids' lives, and, but the thing was is I was prepared for it. I knew that that was gonna be his tactic. Yeah. I had never seen him. Go into an argument, a battle, a conversation where he was willing to admit fault.

He, he had never done that in our 15 years of marriage. That had never happened. So I, I knew what I was gonna get and it's exactly what happened. And how did your children feel about all of this? I, they took it like any kids did. My son at that point was. Nine. And then my daughter. Yeah, so they were pretty young.

My son in particular I think the, the hardest question that he asked was who would protect him when his dad was gonna be mean to him? And for me, it felt, it felt selfish in that moment because I was, I felt like I was choosing it for me, but if I were to stay. I would just be subjecting him to more and more of my ex-husband's abuse and how he would treat my son.

And so I could either stand on a line and being like, I'm being selfish. I'm just choosing me. Or I could say, and what I stood on was, I can't, I can't protect you when you're with him. And I want to, and I wish I could, but what I can promise you is that when you're with me, you're gonna be loved. You are gonna be taken care of.

You're going to smile and laugh, and that is my promise to you. I wish I could make that better, but staying in this marriage for 15 years has not made a home where you're safe. Like I, I wasn't able to stand up to him when we were married, so all I could do was provide 50% of the time safe, which I tried.

I really did. Right. I completely understand and agree actually, because as someone who comes from a household of parents who should have been divorced, I find that is a much worse experience in the long run than if they get divorced now. I haven't, well, I mean, I kind of lived between split homes at one point too, so I can speak for both, but I think that there's so many.

Things that end up happening as a result of suppressing your own emotions as one of the parents who, who wants to separate. And it, like you said, it just enables further abuse and how that scale shifts divorce or not is, dependent on case. But I think it's so unhealthy because when two people are together and they're not in love and they're not happy, but they don't separate and they're staying together for the kids, it just makes that home life miserable. And to a degree, for some of the parents, it makes the children a burden, an object of resentment in their marriage as well as their own personal lives.

I think it hurts the relationship between both of the parents and the parents and the children as well. So it's, I have seen it, I've lived it and it's just so many subtle and subconscious effects that, you don't see up front. And then looking back, you realize, and there's a difference between needing to have two parents and needing those two parents to be your biological parents together in a relationship.

Yeah. Because I think sometimes people can be your biological parents but they weren't meant to be a couple, and part of that is because people are having children. When they're not in love, when they're not aligned. There's a lot of unexpected pregnancies. There's a lot of toxic pregnancies for lack of better words.

And so I think just furthering that environment is very dangerous in the long run. Dangerous in terms of the emotional and spiritual and mental consequences of that. And then, now that your children are older, have you been able to have a conversation with them like you're having with me and explain it to them that way?

And, and have they been. Understanding of that now that they're older? Oh, 100%. I really. I really love the, the relationship that the kids and I have. We try to talk about everything. Unfortunately, their father had passed away from alcoholism in 2020. And so I'm the single lit, literally the single mom.

So I have to do all the sex talks, I have to do all the drug talks, I have to do all the drinking talks. I have to do all of that. And. I started by just taking out the weirdness, like just, Hey, we're gonna talk about this. It's gonna be really weird on me, but I want you to be so familiar with this topic of divorce, of love, of hate, of sex, of drugs, of alcohol, of all of it.

I want you to be so free to ask any questions. To tell me anything, to never be afraid. To share where you're at. Ask the questions because I, I never did. I was a virgin when I got married. I didn't have any idea about sex. I had no concept of what. I, as a woman should know going into such an intimate relationship didn't have a clue.

And I refuse to allow my kids to walk into something like that, not only for on the sake of my daughter, but for the sake of my son. Like, what does consent look like? What does, asking these questions, understanding what intimacy true intimacy looks like. It's, yeah, we talk about everything. To a point that they're probably embarrassed to have conversations with me, but I'm a mom, so I'm like, yeah, if I don't, then the Internet's going to, and I don't trust the, that was my next comment.

The, the way that social media is designed, the amount of sexualized and hateful content on it, average age of exposure to pornographic material is eight to nine years old currently. All right. Mm-hmm. That was last year. Might be younger now because people are getting, tablets and internet access at just two, three years old, which I don't agree with personally, but, mm-hmm.

It puts parents and mentors and older siblings in this tricky position where, you're kind of racing social media to have this talk with them that they really aren't ready to have yet, and that, it's. How do you talk to an eighth grader about this, or a seventh grader about this, or, or an 8-year-old or a 7-year-old about this when you, it's like, it's not the right time, but if you don't, then you know, social media will, and that's not to say that historically, the older kids at school would always pass information down or you would hear stuff like this, but the stuff that you're seeing on social media, the, the words, there's so many.

I'm truly disgusted by some of the stuff I've seen online or that people have told about, told me about words that never even heard of before and I'd never want to hear again. And our children have access to this. Mm-hmm. Freely and abundantly and targeted. It's targeted, the algorithms do target you based off of your race and your gender and all the statistics and data you give them to show you certain types of content.

If you're a young man and the social media platforms know that they will purposely send you sexualized women regardless of how much you build up your feed. They still slip it in and then if you like it or share it or look at it too long, then they send more and they really, they constantly are trying to tear you down.

Same with I can't speak for what women get in their algorithms and feed, but I know that I've made social media accounts that were purely for business and the only statistics they had was age and gender and what they sent me. I was like, this is not aligned with the business at all.

It has nothing to do with what I use this account for. Yeah. And it doesn't help that people in your life will send you stuff that you don't want to see or hear, and then it ruins, your stuff as, but it's just ridiculous. And I think it's important that there should be there. I really feel like there's no.

Social, cultural or relationship classes that you, that are part of the education system requirement? Like there's no Yeah. Relationship class, you have the sex talk possibly at your school. A lot of public education is, is lacking in that degree, but there's nothing about healthy relationships, marriage and divorce.

And I get it. Marriage is weird because it's a religious thing, it's a government thing, it's kind of infused, but at the end of the day. I think like domestic violence, sexual assault, prevention, that stuff should be part of school training just because it's part of life. It happens very frequently. It will happen.

There's a lot of sexual assault, especially on college campuses. Mm-hmm. So even if it was implemented at every college on, on the freshman level, I don't know if it is or not, but high school is definitely an even middle school. I you approach that because. Let's be honest, most middle schoolers are getting into sexual activity or relationships.

I mean, and it's, it starts with imitation, right? We've all seen those videos of kindergartners are like, this is my girlfriend. And they're holding hands or he drew her a picture, and it's cute at first, but there, there comes a degree where they want to actually pursue that because that's what they see in the adult world.

Mm-hmm. And we need to express to them that. It's not just a game, it's, imitation is cute to a degree, but you know, there are boundaries to set within that as well. And having those talks about consent and when I work in male sexual assault violence and awareness is oftentimes is that they were a child a male child who got taken advantage of, or the worst case scenario, all very common.

Is a coach or a mentor at the high school or college level using robbery and blackmail through field time and stuff like that. And so I think it's important. So many. People focus on their daughters, which is important. A lot of sexual assault and, and violence happens to women, but a lot of parents don't talk to their sons about, is anyone touching you?

Has anyone bothered you? Or, or, talking about consent, it's always, Hey, you're a young man, here's how you should treat women. But oftentimes it's not, Hey, here's how women should treat you, especially older women. In a lot of cases of grooming, sexual assault on younger men, it's because there's this toxic masculinity mindset that, oh, if a older woman takes advantage of you, or a woman takes advantage of you, you should be, that's a privilege.

You should enjoy that. It's not rape. In fact, the statistics used to not count. Male sexual assault or violence. If the victim penetrated, they said it does not count as rape. So this excluded drug induced rape or coercion, bribery, black male age, a lot of little kids being taken advantage of because they penetrated statistically, they were not included in those, numbers, which that has shifted now, thank goodness.

Mm-hmm. And it shifted the numbers from a very rare occurrence to, oh wow, this is actually pretty common. So I think there's a lot of. Parenting and social mindset around these conversations that needs to shift. And we have seen that shift from a taboo subject. My parents generation to generation above them, they didn't really have those talks to my generation and the newer generations.

There's a lot more of those conversations like you had with your children. Mm-hmm. But I think we're still far away from where we need to be. 100% definitely. Yes. Yes. Well, and even that, but I, I see very, quite a few abusive relationships in marriages for men that are being abused financially, emotionally, physically by their wives.

I'm like, how do you know, like, why are we not talking about this? Why are we not talking about gaslighting and manipulation that happens to. You could be in your thirties and your forties and you've been in this marriage for however long and you don't recognize that this person is literally abusing you.

And it's, it's stuff, well, there's those pressures that you know, well, you're a man, just deal with it. Or you're supposed to provide and protect no matter what. And I think there's also, on the same end kind of like what you received, which is the. Oh, you could never find a woman like me. There's plenty of that, especially with there's so much content out there pushing that women are just gold diggers or cheaters and stuff.

And then if you have a wife who isn't that but is abusive, you say, well. This is the, the best option. So, a lot of people are settling, like I said, in these bad relationships, and I know that part of your goal in life is to spread awareness about this. And you actually wrote a book called Burn Blocked and better than ever.

Yeah. And I'd love to hear about that writing process and what kind of inspired and form that. So I wrote that in, I was working at a hospital doing a 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM shift. So in the middle of the night I would, need something to do, stay awake, and I was in the middle of my divorce and the divorce was contentious.

It was difficult. There were lots of issues, but what I was also doing was I was dating and I was meeting. So many people, so many men who I was just in shock. About what they were going through. I had no idea that people were as miserable as I was in my marriage. And to come out on the other side just meeting men who were abused, who were stuck in it for the kids who were still still trying to find themselves.

It was everything that I was going through, but on the other side and. I just couldn't believe it. And so I just started writing. I just started writing what were journal entries, but then just kind of formed together as a book. And the theme throughout is just, we were all told who we were supposed to be.

It didn't matter what role it, it was like, you're supposed to be this person, and if you're not, you're a failure. And who gets to decide that we're failures. You don't get to decide. I'm a failure. 'cause Yeah, of course. If I am, if you're gonna hold me to your standard, yeah. Then I'm gonna look like a failure to you and I don't really care.

For me, I was like. I want, this is who I want to be. I no longer want to be in this marriage that is draining me, that is killing me, that is making my kids believe that this is what a happy home looks like. That was the other part. It was like if I knew my kids had the marriage that I had. I'd be like, get out.

Like, no, let's figure out a way to get you out of this marriage. There is, you couldn't make a strongest, strong enough commitment to anyone for me to say, I'm okay with you being treated that way. No. Mm. And so for me to allow it in my life meant that I was giving them permission to allow it in theirs, and that's where I was failing as a parent.

I was failing because I was letting them see me get treated like crap and saying, oh, it's okay. It's not a big deal. It's fine. They would allow that and so much more. Mm-hmm. And I wasn't okay with that. This is Buck needed to stop. And so I just wrote, and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and put it all together in a book and published it 10 years later.

And so I get a little bit of the title, but you could go into kind of like the, the burn part, the blocked. The better than ever speaks for itself. But the burned in the blocked, I was interested in that. Yeah, so to be fair, the original title was Surviving Divorce Dating and Dick Pics. And that my, it was very straightforward.

I really like how straightforward it's right. And my publicist was like, yeah, I don't know that that's gonna sell to everyone because at the end of the day, I do. Clue the stories of the men that I met, and I think that it's important that they feel heard and seen, and so burned and blocked really just comes down to I lost everything when I pursued divorce, when I decided to change my life, when I decided to take my life back, I lost everything.

People turned their backs. I was sleeping in my car. All the people that were friends. Friends before were gone, I didn't see anyone, so technically they'd be like, blocked and, but so, it was just like, okay, y'all do you and I'll do me. And it, it just came down to there wasn't anyone around anymore.

So I was, I was gone there. I was completely alone. Hmm. So would you say. This book is best as intervention for someone who is trying to escape a marriage, feels unhappy as prevention for people getting into marriage or a mix of both? I would probably lean more towards intervention because I think the biggest thing that I went through in what you'll read in there is.

Understanding you're not alone. Like that's where I tell my story because I don't want you to think that what you're going through is something that no one else can relate to. Because that's what it feels like. It feels like, well, nobody will, will really understand. Honey, I promise you. Our stories may not be exact, but the feelings that come out of those situations are all the same.

We all feel alone. We all feel scared, fearful of what that looks like. We all, there's trauma bonds. Trauma bonds are huge to hundred percent what's happening in your relationship? You are like, I'll just give it one more time. I always, I always talk about with my clients, I'm like, listen, there's a straw that broke the camel's back.

Then there's the, the. Legs that got cut off the, you had to stab the camel a thousand times before you actually leave. Like you getting out of those kind of relationships is not just one thing. It's a hundred thousand little things. And that's what this story is about. It's recognizing that this was number one, this was number two, this was number 241.

All of that. And it's okay. It's okay that it took you. 10,000 different little nuggets before you got to where you got to, to be able to get out of there, to break that trauma bond, to leave that relationship. It's okay. It happens to everyone. We all, we all experience it. It's all different.

There's no one unique case, but we all go through it. And it's so important to not feel alone because that feeling of of being alone really amplifies that gaslighting. Like, maybe I am the crazy one. Maybe I am wrong, because no one else seems to agree with me or feel that way. And so I think it's so important to emphasize that you're not alone in that there's a lot of people in that position.

Mm-hmm. And I think that helps take away from the shame. A lot of people are ashamed to get divorced. There's a lot of shame around that as well. And. Yep. Leaving someone, especially when you have children, as we mentioned earlier, people wanna say, oh, that's bad parenting. You're, you're a bad mother or father for taking them away.

But, we have to make hard real life decisions sometimes and, and so I definitely agree and one of your book in the description below for everyone to read and check it out. And I think more importantly, if you're listening. This book is a tool for you to give to someone because I think like we all, like you said earlier.

We often don't even recognize what we're in or we're hypocritical with it, 'cause I've definitely been in relationships where if my friends were in those relationships, I would've said, dude, get out. I've, I've even tolerated, being physically hit and abused and, no, I, I did what I always said, don't do as a man.

Which I was like, well, it didn't hurt. It doesn't matter, mm-hmm. Which, if that happened to one of my buddies, it would've been like, dude, it doesn't matter whether it hurt or not, it's about the principle behind it. And I found myself in that situation and I did not act on it. So I think this book more than anything if you're listening and you had a revelation, you're like, wow, this is my marriage.

Then. By all means, get it. I mean, that's great. But I think if you're listening, this is for you to pass on to someone and do it tactfully. They're not gonna be receptive to you if you're like, you need to get divorced, here's this book. You need to read it. But do it tactfully and with care, it's it's a, it is a tricky situation.

I've been in the relationship where my friends try to get me out of, and I, I put that first and cut off those friendships, and I've also been a victim of. Getting cut off from a friendship because I was trying to help them get out of a relationship that was bad for them. So it's messy and it hurts.

All I can say is if you get outta that and you realize you were wrong, hold yourself accountable. Go to those people, apologize, say, look, I, I put this relationship blindly between us and just hold accountability and, and hopefully they'll forgive you. And if they're true friends, they'll understand.

Like I. I can understand my friends in those positions because I have, done it myself. So it's love is one that the, is like one of the most dangerous but also most fulfilling emotions and I think it's so important to navigate that. So I really appreciate you guesting on podcasts and making your book to help people navigate that because marriage can muddle up love and emotions quite significantly when not done right.

So I really appreciate that as well as your time today. Thank you. I appreciate it. So glad to be here.